Impacts of a Large-Scale Agricultural Training Program in Armenia

Blair, Randall; Fortson, Kenneth; Lee, Joanne; Rangarajan, Anu

doi:10.1086/702791

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…We measure the impact of exposure to a large farmer-training program and post-training voice SMS reminders on agricultural outcomes in the Sikasso region of Mali. As others (Blair et al, 2020;Bragança et al, 2022), we found no strong evidence that the training program had any effect on adherence to recommendations and associated outcomes, although it was effective in increasing farmer knowledge. While these results might cast doubt on the assumption that information is an important constraint to cereal production and marketing in Sikasso, it must be remembered that this article has evaluated only short-term impacts.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 81%

“…Farmer‐training programs are not cheap. For example, Blair et al (2020) reports ~$310 per participating household in Armenia. Yet such programs do not show strong evidence of short‐ or medium‐term impact on actual outcomes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, this could be due to inadequate statistical power since the observed effect size is ~4 days early harvesting compared with an MDE of ~8 days (Table S5). Second, there is evidence in the related literature (Blair, Fortson, Lee, & Rangarajan, 2020;Bragança et al, 2022) that a centralized training event may not be sufficient for recommendation uptake. Third, this could be because timely harvesting of crops could easily be plagued with the problems of procrastination (Akerlof, 1991;Duflo et al, 2011) Notes: Column 1 shows the uninstrumented results from regressing the on-farm crop loss outcome on dummies for assignment to the training-only treatment (TrainOnly) and the training-plus-reminders treatment (+Reminder), without covariate adjustment.…”

Section: Uptake Of Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Does combining traditional and information and communications technology–based extension methods improve agricultural outcomes? Evidence from field experiments in Mali

Dzanku

Osei

2022

Review Development Economics

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Adequate flow of appropriate information to farmers is vital for accelerating the uptake of modern agricultural technologies and improving access to markets, all of which are important for the transformation of African economies. Yet there is limited evidence regarding how information should be disseminated to farmers to achieve the needed impact. Should ICT‐based approaches be used together with traditional methods, or should they be used alone? We used cluster quasi‐random and randomized experiments involving 140 villages in southern Mali to study three chains of causality: does farmer training increase knowledge? Does knowledge lead to change in behavior? Do the different actions generate varying economic outcomes? We show that the role of farmer training in the uptake of extension advice may be overstated in some settings; that procrastination and inattention are more binding constraints to recommendation adherence than information per se; and that such constraints could be mitigated by timely voice SMS reminders. Although timely reminders nudged farmers to take‐up recommendations, leading to meaningful improvements in some intermediate outcomes, these impacts were not large enough to generate improvements in output, prices and profits in the short term. These findings must be interpreted within the context of imperfect compliance with experimental protocols, which pose threats to both the internal and external validity of some of the impact estimates.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 81%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Uptake Of Recommendationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does combining traditional and information and communications technology–based extension methods improve agricultural outcomes? Evidence from field experiments in Mali

Dzanku

Osei

2022

Review Development Economics

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“…But learning and adoption of new practices may not occur just because information about the practice or technology is known. Indeed, the results from a large‐scale RCT in Armenia suggest that training alone may not be enough for engendering the uptake of recommendations in some contexts (Blair et al., 2020).…”

Section: Study Context and Motivationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The impact of mobile phone voice message reminders on agricultural outcomes in Mali

Dzanku

Osei

Osei‐Akoto

2021

Agricultural Economics

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Based on theories of learning that suggest that repetition is important for knowledge retention and application, this article hypothesized that sending farmers reminders about cereal management information received during face‐to‐face training has impact on the adoption of recommended practices and related agricultural outcomes over and above what could be realized after receiving training alone. We provide a test of this hypothesis using a randomized controlled trial in Sikasso, Mali. Farmers in 99 villages received face‐to‐face training, after which 44 villages received mobile phone voice messages that reinforced the training recommendations. This setup allowed us to evaluate the impact of the voice SMS reminders on selected indicators. Our results show that the reminders significantly induced timely harvesting, reduced on‐farm cereal losses, increased uptake of improved grain storage technology, and increased the likelihood of pre‐harvest sales contracting. However, we found no overwhelming evidence that the reminders increased yields, and no evidence of impact on revenues were detected. We draw lessons for development policy and practice.

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Self-selection versus population-based sampling for evaluation of an agronomy training program in Uganda

Hoffmann

Doan

Harigaya³

2023

Journal of Development Effectiveness

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Impacts of a Large-Scale Agricultural Training Program in Armenia

Cited by 3 publications

References 9 publications

Does combining traditional and information and communications technology–based extension methods improve agricultural outcomes? Evidence from field experiments in Mali

Does combining traditional and information and communications technology–based extension methods improve agricultural outcomes? Evidence from field experiments in Mali

The impact of mobile phone voice message reminders on agricultural outcomes in Mali

Self-selection versus population-based sampling for evaluation of an agronomy training program in Uganda

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